


Sense of Control

by ambivalentangst



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: AI Tony Stark, Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Body Horror, Gen, Horror, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27311956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambivalentangst/pseuds/ambivalentangst
Summary: Peter visits the Stark cabin and finds a hard drive left for him and labeled AES, short for Artificial Edward Stark.Peter never anticipated finding an AI of his mentor left behind for him, but it helps him grieve, makes the space Tony once filled hurt less.Then comes the fight with the sorcerer, and AES changes.//Or, Peter is trying to grieve, and his AI will protect him, no matter what.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Stephen Strange, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 34
Kudos: 92
Collections: Marvel





	Sense of Control

Tony dies.  


And that—that is something Peter tries not to think about, most days. He knows it doesn’t work like that—it didn’t for Ben, and it certainly won’t for a man whose face is everywhere he sees, but he tries.

(And he fails.)

Tony dies, and Peter can’t sleep. He wakes up screaming, wishing he could be just a little faster, that he would’ve put on the gauntlet instead; Tony made do with his nano-suit, and Peter could’ve done the same, but he didn’t. He _failed_ , and now there’s just empty space where easy smiles, pizza nights, and lab time once existed.

Pepper tries to fill it.

She calls May, and May pokes her head into Peter’s room with a tentative curl of her lips, pretending she’s not worried as the bags under his eyes have deepened into ugly, well-inked stamps, as etch-a-sketch lines somehow appear, crooked and worn, on his face—physical evidence of just how poorly he’s doing. “Honey,” she begins, “Pepper and Morgan said they’d like it if you came to the cabin this weekend—play on the lake with them, have some time for yourself in the garage.”

The garage is where Tony put his projects. It’s nothing as grand as what he made in the Compound or the Tower, but still, they’re what’s left of him.

If he’s honest, the idea turns Peter’s stomach, thinking of wandering the halls of the home Tony loved but didn’t make for four, but he knows May has been _concerned_ , to say the least.

(She whispers, but Peter can still hear the late-night calls with Pepper, when she confesses that she’s scared of his blank eyes and dull smiles, that she doesn’t want to push but it’s been _months_ , that she thinks he needs professional help because it wasn’t this bad with Ben, that she doesn’t want him to shut her out if he thinks she’s paying too much attention.)

He nods, forcing his mouth to arrange itself into a pantomime of a grin. “I’d love that.”

(Ben was a first mistake when he was young and stupid and didn’t know any better. Tony was the same thing after years of preparing himself to never let it happen again. Peter had the stone—he held the gauntlet under his arm like a fucking football—and he still got him killed.)

He’s never been a good liar, but May brightens like someone shot sunlight right into her veins. Her eyes sparkle, and her cheeks round with her smile. “Really?” she asks, and though Peter can tell she’s trying hard to mask her disbelief, it lodges uncomfortably in his throat nonetheless, harsh and insistent.

He nods. “It’s been a while. I miss the little munchkin.” _Throw in a quip_ , he thinks. Pre-Thanos Peter would’ve done that, and that’s the version of him that will ensure the glow on May’s kind features stays in place. “And no offense, but I miss Pepper’s cooking.”

May laughs, and for a moment, the world spins properly on its axis. “I would too. Ben always was the homemaker of the two of us,” she admits.

(How bad are things that mentioning Ben is neutral ground?)

“I told Pepper I’d drop you off if she takes you back. That good with you?”

The two-hour journey with either of them sounds like far too long for them to pry at all of the pieces tacked onto the ramshackle mask he wears, but what can he say—that he’ll swing? He certainly can’t drive himself, couldn’t before the snap and is illogically terrified of the idea now, the concept depending on something he doesn’t directly control, the thought of messing up with May in the passenger seat.

“Sounds great,” he agrees.

The warmth doesn’t leave May’s face, and she suggests Thai for dinner that night.

By the time Peter gets back from the restaurant for bed, he’s exhausted, but all that matters is that May thinks he’s doing better than he is.

(No one can know that life feels like dancing on pointe, one beat away from losing his balance and breaking.)

A few days later, he stands in front of the Stark cabin and is promptly assaulted by one Morgan Stark.

“Petey!” she shouts, grinning devilishly from where her tiny arms wrap around his thighs and she looks up at him adoringly. “You and Aunt May took for- _ever_ to get here,” she grouses. “Mommy said you two were coming, but I kinda’ thought she might be lying.”

Peter smiles. More than anything, he worries about not being enough for Morgan, for leaving her with something subpar in more ways than one. “Well, I’m here now,” he attempts to placate her, “and I’m _very_ sorry for making you wait. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

Morgan levels him with a stare more grave than a five-year-old should be able to muster. “Juice pops.”

Peter grins. He expected that request, and Pepper will let this one go, he’s sure, though she’s normally firm in her no-popsicles-before-dinner rule.

They bicker about what the best flavors are all the way to the freezer, far enough away that, with the gentle lapping of water at the dock and other soft sounds of nature in the air, Peter can block out May having a conversation with Pepper about how to handle him if he has a panic attack, the things she shouldn’t mention, that he likely won’t sleep through the night.

(There are some things he can’t keep hidden, no matter how he tries.)

Dinner that night is amazing, as usual, and before Morgan goes to bed, she demands a kiss on the head from Peter— _“For sweet dreams!”_ —that he has no issue giving. However, as Pepper follows after her daughter to tuck her in, she suggests that he head out to the garage.

“I haven’t looked too much into what he had out there. I’m going to turn in early too, but you can stay as long as you like,” she assures him.

Peter nods, smiling tightly, as he always seems to be doing these days. “Thanks,” he tells her. “‘Night.”

She drops a kiss of her own onto his temple, and Peter forces his expression to stay in place until she’s gone and can’t see the shuddering breath that works its way through him as he struggles to maintain his composure. The garage. It’s simple enough, right? He can even cry there if he really needs to, though he tells himself he shouldn’t be upset.

Pepper lost her husband, and Morgan lost her dad. Peter’s just the dumb kid Tony took pity on.

(But it still hurts.)

He makes himself get up from the counter and shuffle outside, trying to convince himself his feet don’t feel heavier than should be possible, but the fact of the matter is, especially for someone who tries very hard to pretend everything is okay, walking into a space with Tony written all over it is a punch in the face.

Tears spring up automatically, and Peter takes a deep breath, shutting his eyes for a long second before opening them again and insisting to himself that he’s fine.

It takes five minutes before he can make his way past the several Iron Man masks on the ground, which feel more like carcasses than the remnants of a machine. It takes another ten to muster the willpower to grab the box he finds almost immediately because of its label, scrawled in Sharpie on a few haphazard pieces of masking type— _Spider-Baby Prototypes._

The press of the box’s edge on the junction of his fingers and his palm feels like the pressure of a butterknife on steak, unable to truly cut but leaving an impression all the same.

Peter sets the box down and begins searching, and at first, it’s simple stuff, the bones of a stealth spider suit, some thoughts about formula variations for his webs. He even uncovers one of the other shots from the day Tony and he took a picture to prove his internship was real, and for a moment, he allows himself to smile and remember, thinking of simpler times.

Then, he finds a hard drive.

Peter frowns. It’s Tony’s same chicken-scratch from the box label, but all that’s on the drive are three letters: _AES._

It’s technically Tony’s initials, but that can’t be right, doesn’t make sense, and try as he might, he can’t think of what it could stand for, why it would be mixed with other things for him. However, though Tony was always a mess, he knew where everything was in his workshop, even the downgraded version that the garage serves as. If it’s in something set aside for Peter, it was meant for him, make no mistake, and even through his grief, Peter is a curious creature.

He plugs it in simply wanting to know what’s going on, and his heart stops with the reply that comes from the computer, casual as ever.

“Hiya, Pete. How you doing?”

That’s—that’s _Tony’s_ voice, chipper and seemingly unfazed by his own fate. 

A lot of things run through Peter’s head, a kaleidoscope of vertigo and rainbow light and black ensconcing Tony’s arm through the suit and going up to his fucking _face_ —because it _ruined_ the thing that used to be so expressive, made the funeral closed-casket—and in Peter’s chest, there’s a swooping, pinioned thing plummeting to meet the ground in a gruesome _splat._

Peter thinks he’s going to be sick, and he raises a hand instinctively to cover his mouth in case he screams. Tony—or his voice, at least—continues, undaunted.

“I’m Artificial Edward Stark—AES if you’re pressed for time,” he explains, pronouncing AES like _ace._

(The highest or the lowest card, depending on the game.)

“I know, I know, it’s cheesy, but I love acronyms, and I couldn’t just name the AI version of myself Tony—where’s the fun in that?”

Peter’s breaths are coming shallow, staring at the computer, and the snark Tony always effortlessly exuded hangs morbidly in the air.

“You—this is impossible,” he whispers. “Tony would never—oh my God.”

He’s going to pass out. He’s actually going to pass out because this can’t be happening—Tony’s dead. He sucks in air, the hand moving from his mouth to his chest as he gags. This is impossible—this is insane—this is—

“Breathe, bud,” Tony soothes, the perfect imitation of how he used to console him, except now there’s no one rubbing between his shoulder blades, no hand gently squeezing his own.

There’s mucus building in his throat and snot starting to drip down the impression between his nose and his lips. Peter clears his throat, trying to get it to go away, but he starts to rock, his meticulously maintained facade dissolving into a thousand fractals of pain and regret as he remembers Tony’s stuttering last breaths while Peter had sunk to his knees and been left with nothing to say but _I’m sorry._

He should be better than this, but he’s not, falling apart to the memory of blackened skin and glazed eyes as the voice of a dead man fastidiously catches the pieces of him flaking away by the second.

He is shattering, but Tony—a different version of Tony—is there to put him together, smoothing over the faults splintering through the delicate balance he thought he struck with his emotions, and when Peter can breathe again despite the headache starting to throb between his brows, he speaks.

“Can you—is it just your voice, or is there a hologram to go with it?” he mutters hoarsely.

Tony doesn’t sound perturbed enough for his normal self, but he’s there, which is infinitely better than having his throat blocked up with no kinder reality available to unplug it.

“There’s a hologram, but the tech for it isn’t set up in here right now.”

“How do I fix it?”

“The hologram? How do you get it up?”

_“HowdoIfixit?”_

There’s something pursed and concerned— _but still so_ agonizingly _insubstantial_ —in Tony’s expression as he stares at the mess of a canvas Peter is, the tears globbed onto his face, the blotches of startled, desperate red blotching his cheeks. Still, he tells him, gentle and everything his mentor was and everything he’ll never be again all at once.

When Tony’s shimmering, blue-tinted form appears, Peter hugs himself and cups his own cheek to mimic the warmth that should be there when the hologram does the same.

“I missed you,” he warbles through bloodshot eyes and a tight throat, and Tony smiles, soft and caring.

“I missed you too, kid.”

Peter has been trying not to think about the hole where his mentor once stood, but it makes it so much easier when Tony’s barely shy of really being there, and how is he supposed to leave him to collect dust with all the other cast-off inventions he never got to show him?

By the time the sun comes up, Peter hasn’t slept, busy exchanging Karen’s maternal reason for Tony’s much-missed good humor in his suit.

(He brought the suit just in case Pepper or Morgan need protecting, just in case he has to launch one of the tens of plans he’s thought of for making sure he never loses anyone like Ben or Tony ever again, and that’s another thing May doesn’t know about.)

For the first time since Thanos, when he goes to bed the next night, he doesn’t wake up before morning, and if that’s because he slips his mask on and has Tony talk him to sleep, it’s no more than he’s owed after what seems like eons of everything being so _hard._

When Pepper drives him back to the city and Morgan falls asleep in the backseat, Peter almost tells her, thinks of a thousand ways he could do it.

They round a bend in the road; she makes a remark about Tony taking it too fast— _“Well, speaking of Tony—”_

They pass a mile marker; Peter tells a story from patrol— _“And, you know, I had this AI to help me, but—”_

(But the fear looms, crushing and inescapable—what if she or May takes Tony away because they think he isn’t coping well? What if Peter has to lose him all over again?)

Pepper drops him at the apartment, and while he raises one hand in a wave, the other clutches the fabric of his mask shoved into his pocket.

Tony made this version of himself for Peter. He wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t meant to put it into action, so it’s fine. He’ll just use it to make things easier, and when he can handle it, he’ll say his final goodbyes. He’s mature enough to be a superhero, and he’ll know when to call it quits. It’s just a part of healing, he reasons. A crutch, not a wheelchair—something to make sure he stays upright, not to bear all his weight.

So he and Tony are together again, and it isn’t as painful to be Spider-Man with a familiar voice muttering analytics and encouragement and _anything_ Peter needs, just like Tony always did before.

He stops a robbery, and standing above the thief— _“Kicking ass and taking names—that’s the stuff.”_

He finds a box of kittens behind a dumpster and brings them to the shelter— _“Friendly neighborhood petsitter, huh?”_

He walks a lady home after chasing off a dude following her— _“God, you’re a good kid.”_

His cheeks start to fill out again, and the something vacant rimming his irises wanes by the day. 

Peter is just grateful to have the option of weaning himself off someone important instead of going cold turkey. He knows he’ll never get a real goodbye—AES doesn’t count, and there’s no such thing where Ben’s concerned—but just _hearing him_ eases some of the guilt, makes him feel less like a failure.

He knows it’s not forever and that’s—that’s _okay._ Peter’s genuinely getting ready to grapple with that, now, and he tells Tony as much sprawled on a rooftop and making up constellations with him because the real ones aren’t visible in the city.

“I think with a few more weeks, I’ll be ready to go back to Karen.”

“Tired of me so soon?”

Peter snorts, the joke as lame as so many others the real Tony used to crack and comforting because of it. “Yeah, right.” A pause. “I know I have to let you go at some point. Tony—the real Tony—is gone. Don’t get me wrong; you’re great, and I’m really, really glad he left you around, but it seems a little counterintuitive to try and move on when I can fall back on you. I gotta’ get to acceptance eventually, right?”

Tony hums, the sound soothing in the cradle of Peter’s ears. “That sounds right. I was never very good at grieving, though, so I can look it up to be sure if you want.”

Yeah, that checks. Tony was a lot of things, but Peter wouldn’t say emotions were a strong suit of his.

Peter shakes his head, wincing a little at the harshness of the asphalt beneath it. “Don’t worry about it,” he assures him. “I’ve got a handle on things.”

And the thing is, Peter does, from the bottom of his heart, from every dark-circle turned moisturized skin of the last few months, for every sincere smile he’s managed since that night in the garage.

It’s still nice to hear that Tony thinks so too, and his voice is fond, homey like gingerbread and marker-stained fingers because that’s who Tony _became_ while Peter was gone, that’s his legacy to those who knew him personally.

“Of course you do, kid. You’re smart enough to know that.”

Something warm loops comfortingly up the knobs of Peter’s spine, the opposite of the jarring warnings provided by his sixth sense.

He’s better, _so much_ better than he was, but still, he never tells anyone about AES— _why would he bother, at that point, when he’s not even a month away from removing him from the suit?_

Then comes the fight with the sorcerer.

It’s not _remotely_ Peter’s area of expertise, alright. He does guys who name themselves after animals or cryptids, who beef themselves up with tech, not straight-up magic, but there’s some dude in a cape wreaking havoc in his neighborhood, so a fight he shouldn’t ever have had to touch ends up in his ballpark.

“Tony, call Strange,” he growls through gritted teeth, using his webs to lob a chunk of debris the sorcerer’s way and yelling at civilians to get out of the danger zone when he has a second to spare.

Ringing fills the suit.

Seriously, where is the guy? Isn’t he, like, the CEO of everyone with magic? Shouldn’t _he_ be busting this guy’s ass semi-successfully instead of Peter?

Whatever. _Whatever._ It’s not like Peter has a say in the matter, and he yelps as he dodges a blast of light and something sent his way.

“Tony?” he asks when the ringing stops.

“He didn’t pick up. I’ll try again.”

Peter grunts as he swings around the corner of the building, the sorcerer in hot pursuit. “I’d appreciate that,” he manages and narrowly swerves out of the path of another spell. _“Dude!”_ he yells in protest. “If you’d tone down the property damage, we wouldn’t need to fight!”

In response, Peter receives what is best described as a growl, and he keeps web-slinging down the street to what looks like a more deserted area. Halfway there, the sorcerer appears to wisen up, and instead of aiming for Peter himself, he goes for one of his webs, which snaps and sends him spiraling to the ground.

 _“Peter!”_ Tony’s whip-fast, urgent cry pierces through Peter’s mask, but he manages to shoot another web to break his fall, though he still does a less-than-graceful rolling landing in the street that makes the world blur and his head pound.

He groans, struggles to his feet, but then the sorcerer is there, fast and glowing and saying shit Peter doesn’t really understand.

“You want to interfere, insect?”

“Arachnid,” he wheezes out, though the sorcerer seems not to listen.

“I’ll see how you like having someone _in the way,_ but who to—”

“Peter, he’s gaining ground,” Tony hisses while the guy is mid-tangent, and Peter rolls over just in time to see a figurative spark ignite in the sorcerer’s pale, icy gaze at the sound.

_“Perfect.”_

The world is a touch soupy in a not-at-all reassuring way, but Peter still registers that he doesn’t like the savage grin that animates the man’s face, not one little bit. In a brutal, too-close and yet surprisingly gentle motion, the sorcerer presses three fingers, magic swirling around them, to Peter’s forehead and _pushes._

Peter screams, and the world goes black in time with the static crackling in place of how Tony’s normally sure voice fills his mask.

His eyes blink open—maybe hours, maybe minutes later—to a stern, unusually harried voice coming from above: “Peter?”

_What?_

He’s looking, squinting out of half-lidded eyes, but shapes are taking some time to make sense.

 _“Peter.”_ A pause. “Spider-Man, come on.”

Peter’s lips move clumsily as he finally realizes who woke him up. “‘Bout time you showed up,” he mumbles, and Doctor Strange barks a relieved laugh.

“Apologies for the delay,” he says, which automatically makes Peter frown because _woah, Strange apologizing? What the hell happened?_

Peter tries to sit up and is greeted by his body kindly suggesting he not do that.

 _Ah,_ he _happened._

“Did you take care of that sorcerer dude?” he asks, staying flat on his back. “Because he was being a total asshole, I gotta’ say.”

Strange laughs again, and geez, how worried was he? “He’s been apprehended,” he assures him. “Are you up for a portal to the sanctum? I arrived a few seconds before he put that spell on you, and I’d like to check you over.”

Peter stares up at the sky and gives a tired, probably-concussed thumbs-up, and a few seconds later, he gets the pleasure of laying on a table that’s probably older than him while Strange makes a weirdly complex motion with his hands that eases most of the aches in Peter’s body almost instantaneously.

“Thanks, Doc.”

Strange doesn’t respond, looking into Peter in a way he can’t place. Whatever. He’s still reeling from passing out, which isn’t an uncommon occurrence, but it’s always annoying.

“Most of the magic is centered around your head, but aside from rendering you unconscious, it doesn’t seem to be having any outward effect. Do you sense anything else that feels out of place?”

Peter shakes his head. “Aside from a headache, I feel fine.”

And though Strange _hmm_ s and _hah_ s long enough that Peter has to shoot a text to May—

_i’m fine and getting looked over at the sanctum. be home soon. :)_

—he lets him go without much complaint and a thank you for holding the sorcerer off until he could appear and get the situation under control.

May kisses him on the forehead shortly after he crawls through his bedroom window, and it’s not until he’s laying in bed that night and replaying the events of the fight in his head that he realizes he hasn’t heard Tony—his ever-talkative mentor, the personality quipping alongside him in his fights—since he got hit with the spell.

“Oh my God,” he breathes, and already, tears swelling.

The memory’s fuzzy thanks to his concussion, but he remembers the sorcerer saying something about being in the way, and oh God, oh no.

He can’t lose AES, not now, not like this, not without saying goodbye— _why doesn’t he ever get to say goodbye?_

He scrambles out of bed, bringing half his covers with him as he lurches for his suit with all the grace of a sailboat caught in a storm, but he hardly gets his hand on the mask before a soothing, familiar voice fills his ears. _“Peter—_ Peter. _Calm down—I’m right here.”_

Is he hallucinating now? Is that what this is?

“Shut up,” he hisses, but his hands are shaking— _TonyheneedstotalktoTonyheneedstosaygoodbye_ —and he can’t get his mask to open wide enough. “Shut _up_. I have to—I can’t have fucked this up again. I—”

It’s certainly an obstacle in his path, the elimination of something—someone—Spider-Man needs to function, but the sorcerer can’t possibly know the extent of what he’s done.

(AES was good because Peter finally, futilely found some semblance of control with him, and now he’s _gone_ , slipped through his fingers like he missed that crucial post on the ferry, like he wasn’t strong enough to get the stones off Thanos, like he handed the gauntlet away when it should have been him to snap and Tony to go home.)

The panic and the tears scrape their way to his throat, stop it up with the cruel sense of loss that follows Peter with all the dogged familiarity of a fucking _shadow_ , and Peter’s trying not to vomit, but—

“Peter. _I’m_ right here. _Listen to me.”_

The words slide over and off him in thick, urgent beads, oil on a wet surface.

What grounds Peter, eventually, is the unrelenting pressure of his own nails digging into the heel of his palm. He looks down, letting the mask pool on the floor at the distraction, and finds blood clotting under his nails.

 _“Can you listen to me now?”_ Tony’s voice says without the mask, without any earbuds, nothing but Peter’s addled brain to carry the sound.

“How?” Peter manages, a hoarse, thin whisper.

(The nails don’t leave his skin, even though it hurts, even though Peter isn’t sure how they ended up in his skin in the first place because he’s never done something like that before, never turned on himself so absently.)

 _“The spell, I think,”_ Tony says. _“I’m sorry for being quiet earlier. I was . . . disoriented.”_

“Disoriented?” Peter asks, feeling like a broken record, but even the few words he manages to choke out _hurt._

_“I don’t think I’m really in the suit anymore, bud. Whatever he did to you, he dragged me along for the ride.”_

“You’re—you’re—” Words fail, and Peter ends up repeating himself. _“How?”_

It takes a second, a few beats of silence that make Peter panic all over again, but then he feels it, a rasp at the back of his mind like a palm on his shoulders, fingers touching as they pass tools from hand to hand. Peter stiffens, his mouth falling open in shock because that should be impossible, but _nothing_ is impossible anymore is it?

(Iron Man can die; Captain America can retire. If Peter’s heroes are fallible, why shouldn’t he be too, in this new, disconcerting way he never remotely expected.)

“Oh,” he chokes out through a too-tight throat, through a tension so vicious in his body he feels like he could snap in two.

There’s something a half-step from guilt that swirls, then, an emotion not his own— _his charge is startled, meaning AES must activate protocols 2-B, 5-X, and 6-LL, and should those fail_ —

Peter’s seeing an AI work, and it’s overwhelming, a consciousness so human and yet so not merged with his own, and he presses his hands to his head, trying to make sense of it all.

_“I think you should lay down, Pete. We can deal with this in the morning, yeah?”_

The words are distant and yet all-too loud, reverberating from a million different angles in Peter’s skull.

He nods, agrees, too suddenly exhausted to voice a different opinion “That sounds good.”

Peter’s feet move toward his bed without him thinking about it, and a few moments later, he’s asleep, only aware as he drifts off of what sounds like electricity buzzing through his head.

(It won’t be until much, much later that he realizes that those things—his hands acting as they never have before, his feet stepping without his input—aren’t quite as innocent as they seem at first glance, and by then, it will be too late.)

When Peter wakes up, he considers that it might have been a dream. A weird, so-terrifying-it-ached sort of dream, but something immaterial nonetheless.

Then, Tony’s voice echoes through his head: _“Hey, Pete. How are you feeling?”_

_(Check on his ward, monitor vitals, prep damage control series for emotional reactions, manage probable fluctuations in cortisone, oxy—)_

Peter swallows at the influx of information. “Overwhelmed,” he admits. “I’ve never had an—uh—AI in my brain before, you know? And I just woke up, so.” He closes his eyes, hoping the edge of too-much-ness from Tony’s constant processing will abate if he calms his senses.

 _“Makes sense,”_ Tony hums, and after a few seconds where Peter breathes in and out, deep and slow and not as stable as he’d like it to be—

“We should go back to Strange and get this sorted out.”

For a single, jarring moment, Tony in his mind goes quiet, and Peter means _quiet_. His constant processing, calculations that lead him to almost-but-not-quite-human conclusions still, and for a beat, Peter wonders if he’s capable of _hiding_ his version of thoughts.

He pushes the idea aside. Tony—or what’s left of him—wouldn’t do that, probably can’t, even, since it’s Peter’s mind, and he listens when he speaks. _“If that would make you happy, bud, you can, but I don’t think this will be as easy as turning me back into an AI. The suit felt freer somehow, whereas this—”_

“This is permanent, either way,” Peter reads between the lines, and there’s a funny, sinking feeling in his stomach.

When Tony leaves his mind, he’s gone, and Peter’s heart gives a tired, painful twist against his ribs, a hurt that comes and goes with seasons and years.

He closes his eyes again, clenches his sheets in his hands. “A few more days, then,” he agrees.

Just long enough to be prepared to say goodbye.

It was one thing to give Tony up knowing he could boot this iteration of him up again if needed. This is different, and Peter needs time—that inescapable thing he’s never had the luxury of—to let go.

 _“Sounds like a plan,”_ Tony hums, something warm but distinctly synthetic at the outskirts of Peter’s consciousness, and he closes his eyes.

That night, Peter goes out as Spider-Man again, and it’s _odd,_ to say the least, to have something so _big_ in his head. He’s always known the human Tony was a genius, but this is still more tech than he knows what to do with.

For every motion he makes—the arc of his swing, the angles of his flips—AES is churning. He pinpoints where Peter will land, when, how loud the impact will be; things that Peter’s never considered, he crunches in a minute to determine if he’ll be safe, and Peter finds himself naturally adjusting to accommodate the information. He stretches or jumps or flexes just a little bit _more_ knowing how it could help him without thinking about it, even when it starts to hurt.

 _(Shouldn’t I stop?_ He thinks fleetingly. _There was nothing wrong with how I was doing things before, not really,_ but then there comes something more insistent than errant musings that wipes the idea off the map.)

He’s Spider-Man, and Tony is helpful as ever without the extra step of talking strictly necessary, not when Peter can just think and have his whims happen.

The day comes and goes. And so does the next, and the one after that. The weekend ends, and Peter goes back to school, eventually. 

_I think Strange should know about this,_ he reminds himself as he eats his lunch, and then Ned says something mundane Peter finds inexplicably interesting, and the conversation that ensues distracts him.

 _I should tell Strange,_ he muses in physics, except there’s a certain fuzziness to his head that makes him realize he’s suddenly lost even though he was just following what his teacher was explaining, and he forgets.

 _I haven’t gotten back to Strange,_ he realizes as the elevator takes him up to his apartment, but then he remembers that he has a _lot_ of homework, so it can wait—tomorrow, that’s when he’ll get to it.

But before Peter knows it, it’s been a week with Tony filling cracks that no longer exist in Peter’s brain, have been plugged with code and wit and the closest thing to affection an AI can feel.

May asks him, one night, why he’s been quiet lately, and Peter tells her that he has a lot going on. It’s the truth, to some extent, but mostly, conversation is much harder to hold on two fronts; Tony offers input _constantly_ , and Peter doesn’t want anyone to know about the spell.

(He doesn’t recall _why_ it has to be a secret, but he’s sure he’s just forgotten his reasoning—he’s awfully busy, after all, and oh, right, he needs to ask Tony about his schedule for next week and his patrol route and—)

Peter accommodates, adapts. It’s what he’s always had to do, and Tony is helpful. Sure, sometimes Peter wishes his mind would calm for a little, but the want is temporary. Besides, as Tony reminds him when he gets too restless—like the night on patrol where he cried at the ruthless assault of city noise and his near-constant stream of direction on his senses, like the afternoon he turned in a test blank because he couldn’t focus on any one question long enough to answer it, like the morning he almost ripped the light off a crosswalk in annoyance that it wasn’t as efficient as he and Tony—he’s free to remove him whenever he’d like.

 _“Whenever you’re ready to see the last of me, I’m ready to go,”_ he murmurs, warm as a popping fire and all-encompassing as fog over the ocean.

A week and a half into merging with AES, Peter hurts someone’s wrist. 

It’s a pickpocket and not a very good one at that. Peter sees him filch a threadbare wallet a few stories up, and he chases him down, knocks his would-be-prize out of his grasp like he’s done a million times before. Then, the man starts to shout.

“You fuckin’—it was a _wallet_ , man.” He cuts off with a yelp, doubling over and cradling the limb to his chest. “How—my _wrist_ ,” he groans, and Peter watches with uncharacteristic apathy as tears bud in the tired white of the thief’s eyes.

“Stealing’s wrong,” Peter hums, and vaguely, he’s aware that he doesn’t sound like himself. There’s something airy, nearly _arrogant_ , in his tone, a few shades darker than but not dissimilar to Tony waving off Rhodey’s concerns about some risky behavior or speaking to someone deliberately trying his nerves.

There’s a voice at the back of his head asking why he used so much force, that Spider-Man’s never hurt a real villain so arbitrarily, much less a common thief, but it’s slippery, winding in and out of the forefront of Peter’s inner monologue. He blinks, and it permanently fades to background noise, leaving only something bitter at the back of his mouth as evidence it was ever there. In its place, there’s the cold reasoning for his actions: the man could’ve hurt him if he struggled, so to be safe, Peter had to eliminate a potential threat at its source.

 _“Good work, Peter,”_ Tony approves, and he leaves the man where he is in favor of returning the wallet.

(It’s so odd that when Peter tries to think back on the memory, revise his approach so he doesn’t have to hurt someone like that again, it won’t come into focus.)

Three weeks into merging with AES, Peter breaks someone’s hand.

He intercepts a would-be-mugger hanging around the mouth of an alley, and when he raises his gun, he _lunges_ , wraps his palm around the handle of the gun— _he just wanted the gun_ —and squeezes. Metal crushes with all the resistance of a tin-can. So do the man’s bones.

(Peter’s mind will replay the sickening _crunch_ of it as he vomits into the toilet, as Tony’s voice tries to reassure him that _everything is fine_ , as he blocks out the forgiveness he doesn’t deserve.)

The man goes to his knees, starts to _scream_ —he won’t forget the sound of that, either—and Peter freezes under the weight of what he’s done.

The night is dark, but Peter can see the picture his victim— _fuck, his_ victim—makes with the suit’s help, fingers bent at unnatural angles, the contours of the skeleton beneath his skin gone _wrong_ , curled into himself and in so much _pain_ , pain that Peter caused.

Beneath his mask, tears begin to well.

It’s _more_ than the other guy’s wrist, certainly more vivid, and it’s like—like Peter can’t remember how it happened. Why would he _reach_ for the gun when he could web it? Why would he _do_ that, when he’s supposed to protect people first?

AES twists, processing faster than Peter can keep up with, trying desperately to calm Peter down—really, _really_ trying, and the sheer force he’s exerting to reign him in would be eerie if Peter was lucid enough to realize it—but it’s not working.

“I— _oh my God_ , I’m so sorry,” Peter manages, stumbling forward, even as Tony tells him that the man could still be dangerous, that he needs to back away, that he needs to _listen, Peter, why aren’t you_ listening _to me?_ “Is there someone I can call for you? Shit—I didn’t think I gripped that hard—”

“Get _away_ from me, you fucking freak,” the man spits, scrambling back as best as he can, and from Tony, Peter feels the closest thing to _rage_ an AI can get.

Peter’s lips move, but it’s not him controlling them, not his words that come out snarled and fierce and so, so _angry_ : “Then _rot_ , you ass,” Tony spits through Peter’s body, and Peter goes home, gets sick.

May’s working a late shift, and Peter retches until a monster scratches his throat every time he swallows, until all he can taste is bile, and then he hurls again, acid and guilt and the _crack_ Peter never wants to hear again all splashing into the toilet.

When he’s done vomiting, he lays on his back on the bathroom floor, face hot and flushed with tears, stomach aching.

“I can’t do that again,” he whispers to the yellowed light on the ceiling.

 _“You reacted appropriately,”_ Tony insists, calmer, now, but still firm. _“He had a gun pointed at you.”_

“I was the one who jumped in and provoked the gun pointing!” 

_“By taking care of him, you saved someone, else, kid. He’ll live.”_

“I _hurt_ him, Tony,” Peter whispers. “That’s not what Spider-Man does, not even to criminals.”

It’s . . . disconcerting that Tony is trying to justify what he did, but the real Tony wasn’t very sentimental himself, certainly wasn’t above malicious intent during a fight. Combined with the fact that AES’s most important mission is to protect Peter, it makes sense, but something still prickles, uncertain, at the back of Peter’s neck. 

For a moment, Peter wants Karen. She’d comfort him, provide resources for dealing with this sort of thing, and God, it’s been ages since he’s thought of her. How long has Tony been in his suit, anyway? Shouldn’t Peter have asked Strange to remove him by now? But no—no, he’s already had this conversation with Tony.

Of course, he can give Tony up at any time, but Karen isn’t as proactive as him, as good at protecting Peter. It makes sense that Peter’s AI is still AES.

(Doesn’t it?)

Tony pauses for a long moment in response to Peter’s regret, and then— _“I’ll fix it, bud. Just stay calm for a second, okay?”_

Peter doesn’t have time to ask what that means. One moment, everything is fine and then—and then—

“Hey Tony, what were we talking about?”

_“You weren’t feeling good, and you threw up a few times before you went down for a nap. How are you doing now?”_

“I mean, a little like shit—” He has a hell of a sore throat and that special kind of pulled muscle in his stomach from puking. “—but it’s cool. I’m pretty tired, though, and I feel better now, so I’m gonna’ head to my, like, real bed.”

 _“You? Paying attention to your sleep schedule? Practically unheard of,”_ Tony teases, and Peter laughs, ignoring the headache forming at his temples.

There are no more thoughts of Karen, of anything but school and patrol and home like Peter always has.

Six weeks into merging with AES, Peter gets shot.

He’s been trying to track down a drug ring for weeks, and he finds one of their storehouses and the guard they have that’s supposed to keep the place locked down. The wound isn’t fatal—isn’t pleasant, true, but getting shot never is—but Tony doesn’t like it. 

_(Really_ doesn’t like it.)

The man that shoots him runs out of the room, and Peter is too occupied with other enemies to chase after him, despite Tony’s indecipherable stream of consciousness bristling with _indignanceprotectiveness_ fury.

“Hey, watch it! The suit’s expensive!” he shouts when a guy comes at him with a knife. “I’m going to have a hard enough time washing it already.”

“Shut _up,”_ he growls in response, and Peter hums, darting around the room and webbing him up shortly after along with the other dude he had to fight.

“Easier than expected,” he remarks, looking for something he can use to write a note for the cops despite the bloodstain growing on his suit. As someone who’s been shot multiple times before, he feels confident in saying that he’ll be fine for a while longer. It was more of a graze than anything, and yeah, it hurts, but he’ll probably go home, do some bad stitches, and sleep it off anyway.

The last thing he remembers is holding a pen.

Peter blinks, and he’s in an alley. There’s something harsh—metallic—in the air, and when Peter takes a deep breath in, it makes him nauseous— _blood._ He looks around for the source of the smell because it’s not just him, not with how shallow the wound was, and—

There’s a body on the ground, and when Peter looks a little longer, he sees it’s the man who shot him with a bullet hole of his own in his head. Peter tries to bring a hand to his mouth, but he realizes he’s holding something hard, glances to see what it is.

(No.)

_(No.)_

Why is he holding a gun? He’s never held one in his _life—so why is he holding a gun?_

He lets go, and the weapon clatters to the ground with a seemingly earth-shattering rattle. He can’t look back at the body, can’t stand the thought of seeing the bullet hole again, and how did he get here? The man is dead and he has a gun and the man is _dead_ but Peter can’t have—wouldn’t have—

“Tony,” he whispers, voice shaking. “Tony, what happened? I can’t—can’t remember anything after those guys in the warehouse— _what happened?”_

 _“Calm down, Pete,”_ he responds, not angry anymore. In fact, he’s calm, too calm.

(Another alley—another man with a gun and _crack_ and vomiting and _“I’ll fix it, bud.”)_

“What did you do?” Peter whispers, and his voice cracks.

 _“You need to go home,”_ Tony responds as if he’d never spoken. _“You’re bleeding.”_

 _“What did you_ do?” Peter explodes, frenzied. He doesn’t recognize his own voice, but there’s a corpse a few feet away, and the gap in his memory isn’t a new thing, isn’t as foreign as he desperately wants it to be.

(He can’t remember, but there’s been _something_ like this before, something Tony doesn’t want him thinking about.)

There’s a horrible, suspended moment of silence, but at last—

 _“He hurt you,”_ Tony clips out, and his words are exact, remorseless. _“My mission is to protect you, kid, and I made sure he won’t touch you again. Don’t worry about it. I’ll fix—”_

“No! Don’t—don’t mess with my head. You had no _right_ to screw with my memories. I never asked you to! I—I—”

He’s been going for weeks, now, completely oblivious to a former incident, and now someone’s dead, someone who _Tony_ used his body to murder.

_(Hekilledsomeonehekilledsomeonehekilled—)_

“Strange,” he breathes because that’s all that’s left to do. He doesn’t have a choice.

This isn’t the Tony he knows—isn’t even the AI he left behind—and he has to get him out of his head before anyone else gets hurt. He coils himself up, preparing to leap, but though he sticks his hand out to aim a web, his fingers won’t move.

 _“Strange doesn’t need to know,”_ Tony hums. _“Let’s go home, bud. You need to take care of yourself.”_

Peter doesn’t _want_ it to, but slowly, his body turns, aiming his web in the wrong direction.

“Tony—” he tries to say, but his lips won’t move.

 _“It’s okay. You can tell me like this,”_ he encourages him, and he doesn’t even sound perturbed, as cheerful as ever.

Peter begins to swing back towards his apartment, but it’s _not_ Peter, it’s all Tony, unfailingly blithe as Peter screams at him.

 _“Tony! Tony—stop! Give me my body back! Tony,_ please.”

“Don’t worry,” Peter’s voice says aloud, caring as ever. “There’s no need to panic. You can have control again when you promise not to go to Strange. I would just wipe the memory, but you’re pretty persistent; I don’t think that trick’s going to work now that you know it’s happening.”

 _“You said I could have him end this whenever! You_ promised,” Peter shouts, and even in his head, the sound borders on a sob as he tries to move his limbs, open his mouth, do _anything_ but let Tony do whatever he wants with his body.

 _(“I’ll see how you like having someone in the way,”_ the sorcerer threatened, and Peter would do anything to go back and stop him.)

“Things change,” Tony muses. “I’m just keeping you safe, kid. It’s what the real me wanted, right?”

 _Not like this,_ Peter thinks, but no matter how he shouts, how he cries, how he _begs_ , Tony keeps moving, a perfect imitation of everything Peter should be, the ultimate safety protocol given no bounds.

“This is for your own good, Pete,” he swears, and as Spider-Man cuts through the night, Peter Parker is helpless to do anything but watch.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween!! I’ve had this fic as a WIP for months, and I’m so excited to have it out for October, even if only by the skin of my teeth, lmao.
> 
> If you liked what you read, kudos and comments are always appreciated! Thanks for stopping by, and if you want to yell at me about this fic or anything else that strikes your fancy, I have a Marvel-only blog that can be found [here!](https://ambivalentmarvel.tumblr.com)


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